POSTCARDS FROM COLORADO JUNE 23, 2005

Note: Click Here for a Photo Gallery of Eileen's Photos in Colorado.

Gosh, it seems like we just got here and we've got to turn around and leave--boo hoo. We love the mountains soooo much. We rejuvenate our soul here among the apus (mountain spirits), refresh our banged up emotions along the water courses whether a trickle of a steam or the madly rushing, snow melt fed rivers. The silence of Nature soothes our fractured ears hurt by too many man-made sounds. The clean air revives our polluted lungs and fills them with the scent of pine needles laying on the humus floor and the fragrance of Mother Earth herself, instead. The trails are many and people on them, few. It allows us the alone time from humanity so that we can feel, think and sense clearly within ourselves. Mountains give us reflection upon ourselves without any distraction.

Every day we have gone out, we leave gifts of food for the local spirits of the trail we are on. A grateful thanks for what they give to us in return. We have been gift with three feathers over the course of this week. The first one, a Magpie feather of shining blue, black and white, is special to me. When we were over at the Yampa Botanical Garden, and after completing our shoot of their incredibly well kept facility of mountain flowers, we walked over to the softball fields to a small house that had picnic tables in the shade. As we sat there eating and appreciating Emerald Mountain, across the raging Yampa River, I noticed that there were three noisy Magpies in a nearby grove of Aspens very close to this little house/picnic area.

When I was a kid, I remember finding a baby Magpie (member of the crow family, by the way) and my Mother, Ruth, picked her up and took her home. We kids were delighted, of course... this scrawny little nearly bare butt bird in her hands was ours! Mom made an educational lesson out of this for us--responsibility to feed the bird every two hours during daylight, keeping her cage clean daily (they poop a LOT), and finding soft, dry grass to make her a 'nest' of sorts in the birdcage so she'd feel right at home. And of course, we had to go find out what Magpies ate (anything....they are garbage can birds like crows/ravens), and then feed her consistently or else... We got to name her, too: Maggie the Magpie.

Us kids were thrilled to death with this naked baby bird and to call it our own. Well, Maggie grew steadily. She was a smart one, that bird. She'd see one of us kids enter the kitchen and start screeching and flapping her wings wanting food. I think she grew faster because we loved feeding her bread crumbs, any kind of veggie that had been cooked. Maggie was sharp--she knew there were always leftovers from dinner, sitting on her perch, peering intently at us with her huge round, black eyes. And when we'd get up from the table, she'd start calling, jumping up and down on the perch (sometimes flopping off and falling to the bottom of the cage), begging for the leftovers.

Oh, this bird was huge by the time she fledged. And oh yes, fledging... learning to fly. Maggie quickly outgrew the parakeet cage my Mom had. Mom would put her inside it at night and she'd go without a peep. But at dawn, you could hear her screeching her brains out from the kitchen and it was enough to wake up the household. She wanted out! And Mom would get her out and she'd sit on top of the cage, not yet flying, and watch everything with a keen, curious eye. It was fun to go over and pet her sleek black and white and gleaming greenish, purplish wings. She loved the attention and was always 'begging'. Of course, us kids would have something to give her, be it part of a cookie, a piece of toast, a bit of scrambled eggs. She was a real member of our home.

Mom said that Maggie would start flying soon. She'd stand on the top of her cage, gripping the wires with her feet flapping her wings like crazy. We were entranced by all this circus drama. Then, one day, she did. The kitchen was her home, so she flew around and around and around in there with a joyousness that had us cheering and laughing.

One day, as Maggie was learning to fly, she zoomed from her cage, flew close to one wall and shit. I'm telling you, Magpies are like cowpies... you shoulda seen the yellow wall splattered with that stuff. Mom about croaked. We laughed hilariously until it was us cleaning it up.

Then, another time as Maggie was getting her wings strong and learning how to fly throughout all the rooms in the house, we left to go to the grocery store. When we returned two hours later, Maggie was gone! We kids were beside ourselves with grief and sadness. Mom kept muttering that she KNEW Maggie was somewhere in the house and that the curious bird had gotten into trouble. My mother's a Scorpio and she leaves nothing unturned. My Mother finally found Maggie wedged between the stove and refrigerator--upside down!!!

Mom pulled Maggie out of her trap. The bird squawked. Mom set her upright on her cage and she tipped over and Mom caught her before she fell to the floor. We don't know how LONG Maggie had hung upside down and we figured all the blood was in her head. Mom put her in the cage and she set down, for once and didn't say a peep. About an hour later, she was raising a ruckus and Mom took her out of the cage and she was just fine. That's a Magpie for you--they get into more trouble than you could EVER imagine!

The day that Mom was going to let her go, because there was a family of Magpies in the Cottonwood where she had fallen out of it, we all trooped out to the fence. We all said 'good-bye' to Maggie, knowing that she must be returned to the wild. Mom set her on the post. Maggie looked at each one of us, and then she looked toward the tree and the squawking Magpies hidden within its limbs. She squawked and fluttered her wings. The Magpies in the tree's squawking intensified. Maggie took off and flew straight to the tree where she got a welcome home. Such noise!! From that day on, Maggie always came back to the same post where Mom had placed her, and she would squawk at us. We never tried to feed her or touch her because we knew she had to learn how to survive without us. And of course, she did. For the six years we were on River Road in Ontario, Oregon, Maggie the Magpie was there on the fence post every single morning,come rain or shine, to tell us 'hello.'

So, Magpies are special to me. When we were done with our lunch I put out a handful of Fritos and part of my sandwich in front of the tree where they were staying.

I might add that Dave found a Blue Jay feather on the South Fork trail and a Crow feather on the Mad Creek trail. I've got all of them and they are beautiful.

The next evening, on a walk around the park, I happen to spot a beautiful, long, black and white feather near the stream. I picked it up. To my delight and surprise, it was a Magpie feather! And then I smiled. I knew it was a 'gift', a 'thank you' from the Magpie Family over in the Quaking Aspen. I shall always treasure this feather because of the warm memories it brought from my past, as well as the love bestowed upon me.

So, today's hike, the last, was chosen to be the Hot Springs Trail. On the map, it said, 'bring a towel' so we had visions of after a 3 mile hike over a 700' gradient, on a bike trail, that we could soak, our tired feet and tight calves into a hot sulphur springs! Wow! The day turned out to be one of surprises on a Uranus scale, the planet of shock, surprises and changes.

It had thunderstormed the afternoon before and we'd gotten a much needed one hour steady rain here in the valley. I thanked the Thunderbeings, giving anything to have this damnable heat--87F--reduced. And rains always did that. While we were eating at the Ore House, it started raining.

So, this morning, we started at 7:00 a.m. up the trail. We breasted one hill and quickly got into waist deep green grass. Of course, because it had rained the night before, all the heads of the grass were bent--and you guessed it--right over our narrow little dirt path. So, in a matter of ten minutes, 2/3rds of our bodies were soaking wet. To make things really worse, my new boots, which are not waterproofed, soaked up a horrendous amount of water and as I climbed out of of that area you could hear 'squish, squish, squish' with ever step I took. Lucky for me I had another pair of dry socks I always carried in my pack from habit. However, my boots were soaked and I knew there was no sense in changing them now because they'd get wet, too. So, I thought I'd wait until we made it to the Hot Springs and do it there. Lucky, also, we brought one towel each and our bathing suits.

The trail parallels a rushing, tumbling creek over endless granite boulders and rocks worn smooth by the agitation of the water. There is a lot of scrub Oak, Elderberry bushes and rich, thick grasses and bushes all along it and on both sides of the narrow trail. I found several things: White Paintbrush, which is something I've never encountered in all my travels. We have the Desert Paintbrush at home and most people recognize it as the orange variety, which is the most common color (there is pink and yellow, also). To find WHITE was a real find!

The day was damp and cool with some overhead cirrus. Finally! A day that was slightly chilly. I was in heaven after that awful heat of the last week.

I found some lovely, deep blue Flax in bloom. It comes in very light blue to this lapus lazuli color and this particular flower group was exquisite. And another blue flower, the shy, fragile looking Harebells, were along a granite out cropping. They too, had beads of water bowing their heads. This was a 'blue flower day' for me. I also found some deep pink Wild Roses and they were too hard to resist. All the while, we were sure looking to get to the end of this beautiful, quiet trail to the Hot Springs. I had pictures of soaking in the warming water and loosening up my tight muscles. What a neat thing!

At the end of a hike you get to jump in healthy hot water. We could hardly wait.

As we drew near to the Hot Springs, there were two old cabins. One was very old; probably late 1800's and not much left except the 3 lower logs to comprise the square of the cabin. We looked at the ax cutting on the logs and wondered what the story was behind it. Who was the owner? What had he found here? Gold? How long had he stayed?

There was another cabin, much better shape in some respects, with plaster between the logs, so I'd say around 1900 or so. It too was in complete disrepair, the roof broken and yawing open. Again, we wondered what the story was behind this cabin and its owner.

We finally made it to the Hot Springs area. We could smell sulphur on the air in a little grotto with a granite overhang. I was slowing down because any seep or standing water could signal an orchid. My fondest wish was to find one and nary one on this trip. Of course, all my other trips in the USA, I never found a terrestrial (earthbound) orchid, either. I found orchids in proliferation on hikes with Michele Burdet in the Alps of Switzerland and they were wonderful to photograph. But none here. I was REALLY bummed out about this. Every trip, I looked forward to finding an orchid--any orchid--but nothing.

We also found Shooting Stars at this grotto so I photographed them. It was the only place on this four mile hike, one way, that we saw. That was a find in itself!

We crested the hill and this stone and redwood building stood out gracefully and we got excited about getting in! We finally found someone and he was walking down the road (we discovered there was a dirt road into the place. Before, we thought the only way you could reach this place was by trail--silly us). We asked if we could use the hot springs and he said it didn't open until 10 a.m. It was 8:30 a.m. I was so bummed. He also added that Thursday was their cleaning day and you could hear equipment down below us making a lot of noise.

What an absolute bummer! We glumly thanked him and found a place to sit down. I had to get my feet out of these wet socks. As I pulled off my first boot, water ran out of it. NOT a good sign. Great. I took the second one off. MORE water. Dave said I did a good job of getting wet. I took off my socks and squeezed about a quarter cup of water out of each of them.

Well, our towel was going to be used to dry off my water soaked feet. I asked Dave if he had any plastic bags in his pack. What my thinking was: dry my feet off, put on my nice, thick dry socks, put them each into a plastic bag and then put my soaking wet hiking boots back on. He thought that was a creative idea and we found one plastic bag from a store and one, one-gallon Zip lock bag. Perfect!

At least I wouldn't have wet, soggy feet or blisters on a four mile return trip And no hot springs. What crap. I was NOT in a good mood at this point. But, little Chipmunks, fat buggers for sure, use to tourists, approached us. After I got my feet dried off and in warm, comforting socks, I put the towel on the ground and my feet on top of it. Dave threw some Fritos to the chippies and here they came! We sat there resting, eating a sandwich and restoring our water as they entertained us.

We decided at 8:50 a.m., to leave. I was really grumpy because I had so longed to come here and have a good mineral soak. Sort of a dream come true. But they were closed.

As we started back down the trail, my feet were fine in the plastic bags within my boots. We stopped again at the little grotto where the Shooting Stars were at. "There could be orchids around here," I told Dave. The soil was right, the water was right. I peered over and over again around the grotto and saw nothing.

"Hell," I muttered defiantly as I turned back to the path, "there aren't any orchids around here anywhere..." and I was again, bummed. But then, my eye caught a bright red stem no more than fifty feet down on the bank under some pine needled area. What was it? I then recognized the red stems that I had seen at the Lower Fish Falls--and taken photos of them. They had not bloomed out so they were just red stems sticking up out of the dry, brown pine needles. I thought they were a parasitic plant, Orobranche, that has a bright red stem, too.

Oh, well, I thought, I might as well photograph the Orobranche in bloom. As I got down, squinting because it was in deep, dark shade and my eyes aren't great, I realized I was not looking at Orobranche.

"Oh, migod, Dave!" I screeched. "It's an ORCHID! An ORCHID!!!" I dropped to my knees, hunkered down and took a good look at it. Yessir, it WAS an orchid. I sat there gasping, filled with joy and shock. Dave was leaning over admiring it, too.

"I'll be darned," he said. "An orchid. Finally."

Well! My grumpiness disappeared in a flash. The hot springs was completely forgotten. I knelt there with shaking hands, taking 40 photographs of this beautiful little orchid in bloom. I had no idea what kind it was at the time, and it didn't matter. It was an ORCHID. It has 6 petals and the lower lip was wide, flat, white with purple spots on it. When I realized that I had photographed the SAME orchid, not in bloom, at Lower Fish Creek Falls headwaters, I just shook my head. Goes to show you that without something in bloom, you can easily misidentify it. I later was able to identify it as a Coral Root Orchid from one of the flower ID books I'd bought here in Steamboat Springs. Too cool.

My whole week was anchored in finding this one orchid. What a GIFT! I was delirious with happiness. I photographed that orchid in every possible perspective and angle. It was only about 10 inches tall and I had missed it coming up the trail. Only coming down the trail, slowing and looking because it was good orchid area, did I see it.And even then, you could easily miss it in the deep shade. But the red stem stood out, flashing at me like a big, red stoplight.

Wow...this was a million times better than a hot springs!

By the time we got home, we had to do mundane stuff like do the washing and start packing to leave. We have to be out of the resort no later than 10 a.m. Friday morning. That was fine. I had found an orchid. My life was complete. And what a great ending to a very trying and interesting week: I get my 'raindrop' therapy massage at 4:00 p.m. today with Carrie over at the rocky Mountain Wellness Spa. Then, at 5:30 p.m., one last, final dinner at wonderful Harwig's, with Michael the Sommelier, choosing a wine for me. Boy, do we have a lot to celebrate tonight!

Our trip begins tomorrow morning by driving back to Granby. The AMTRAK train is supposed to pull into Granby at 3:32 p.m., but our experience with it coming up to Granby, it was 2 hours late! So, I have absolutely no faith it will be there on time, but we can't risk not being there ourselves. It is 70 miles to Hot Sulphur Springs, Colorado, and we will stop there for lunch and soak in their mineral bath for at least an hour to revive ourselves. Then, we'll get to Granby around 2:00 p.m., drop off the rental car and sit at the train station which is nothing more than a roof on logs next to the tracks.

When AMTRAK finally does come through to pick us up, we head down to Denver to the Executive Tower Hotel which doesn't have coffee in the rooms (I can't believe this....). Once we arrive, I'm going to call Janis Paige who is an athenian, and she doesn't live very far from the hotel and we're going to try and get together to say 'hi.'

At 6:00 a.m. the next morning, an ungodly hour, we're to be in front of the Union Station to be picked up by a Greyhound bus and 4 hours later, deposited at the AMTRAK station in Raton, New Mexico. The train is supposed to arrive at 10:15 a.m., and if all goes well, we'll be on it and then at around 8:00 pm, it disgorges us at Flagstaff, Arizona. From there, we go to our van which is in the AMTRAK parking lot and drive home. With Uranus on my Moon I wonder how many changes or surprises are in store for us between here and there...

Well, no matter, I have my orchid! Life is good.

I hope you enjoyed these postcards.

Warmly,
Eileen

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